


just You, and            i

by CollingwoodGirl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Blow Jobs, Erotic Poetry, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Jack being lovely, Jack writes Phryne a love letter, Lots of blushing, Love Letters, Lust, MFMM Year of Quotes, Masturbation, Phryne knows more is MOAR, Poetry, Voice Kink, e.e. cummings - Freeform, restricted section
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-03-05 08:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13383735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollingwoodGirl/pseuds/CollingwoodGirl
Summary: The forbidden text is still clutched tightly in his thick-knuckled hand. “‘Muscles better and nerves more.’”Written for the quote challenge where the quote was the e.e. cummings poem,I Like My Body When It Is With Your.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After e.e. cummings' publishers excised his more erotic work from other collections, "Tulips & Chimneys" and "XLI", for fear that it would scare off readers - and therefore sales - cummings thought it best to have his "most personal work" published privately. These 79 poems (now published in the previously named editions) were mostly about his relationship and fascination with his lover, and (briefly) wife, Elaine Orr. The collection "&" was dedicated to Elaine and carried a rather sentimental publish date of February 14, 1925.
> 
> It's plausible that, with her money and connections, Phryne would have been able to procure a copy of "&" to keep in what I like to think of as the _restricted section_ of her library.
> 
> In my head canon, Jack is a voracious reader and would have been familiar with some of Cummings' other work (the 45-word evisceration of William Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, stands out particularly) but he's never seen the likes of this...
> 
> Thanks to SarahToo for the feedback and to Fire_Sign for keeping me off-task. And many thanks to you for reading! As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome. XOXO, CG

“Jack!” she trills, taking the stairs at a gallop. “There you are!” Her hair is still wet and she is wrapped in his favourite dressing gown—its silk collar bearing the scar where he had once fastened his Buffalo Bill token. “Venturing into the illicit section of my collection, I see. Not afraid of having to arrest yourself?” Her eyes dance with amusement.

“No one would believe it even if I did, Miss Fisher,” he replies in typical self-deprecating fashion. “There are advantages to having a reputation as a dour killjoy.”

Steadfastly refusing to blush, he smooths his hands down his clothing and gets on with extracting his selection from the shelf—a slim volume with nothing to recommend it but for a worn red binding. He’s a detective, after all, and the dogeared pages confirm his suspicions. It’s a favourite of hers.

“Choosing a book over me on your day off _does_ give that sort of gossip an air of credence,” she teases. “Especially when I’ve dismissed my staff for the sheer pleasure of having you wherever I want you.” Her eyes fall to the book in his hands—one of only several dozen privately printed, procured through a mutual friend of the financier—and she shivers at the thought of his tongue curling around the gorgeously writ (and unabashedly lewd) poetry within it. Sidling closer to wrap her arms around his waist, she sucks gently on his reddened ear. “Good thing I know you better.”

Her lust-husky voice sets every nerve in his body alight. He’s going to have to work on his resolve, lest he become too predictable. But perhaps not just yet, because she smells of the muguet soaking salts he’d bought for her in Paris, and her skin is damp and warm from her bath. It seeps into his bones like an embrace all its own.

He presses back into her arms—eager to be seduced and cursing how easily it’s managed, now that he’s known the spoils of his pursuit. His head lolls back to rest on her shoulder—a silent invitation for her to plant lovebites along the tender skin of his neck.

Phryne obliges with a dark chuckle, impatient for the bruised sound he makes when she scrapes her teeth along his bow-taut tendons. “Mmm,” she hums, fingers insinuating between his shirt buttons to feel the long lines of his abdomen stuttering.

“You know me far too well,” he gasps, caught between a laugh and a moan when her tongue slides through the short, velvety hair at his nape. He’s practically swooning.

“I love you like this,” she murmurs, as if there’s anyone else to hear. With a neat sidestep, she’s in front of him, running her palms over his hair—all sun-torched and curls delight—and down his thrumming neck to rest against his chest. The forbidden text is still clutched tightly in his thick-knuckled hand. “ _Muscles better and nerves more._ ”

He pulls at her bottom lip with his thumb, as if he might find the source of the unfamiliar words lurking amidst the spit-slick skin. “’Fraid I’m not familiar with that one.”

She allows him to explore, her kitty-pink tongue darting out to encourage his finger closer, deeper, so she can taste him properly. She can still taste herself in the rasping ridges of his fingerprints, exalts in the way he can’t pull his eyes away from where he disappears into her mouth, his own lips mimicking the shape of hers.

“As luck would have it…” Phryne purrs, circling around to the chaise, “…you’re about to become acquainted.” She pets the space beside her—ruffling its perfect nap of lemon sheen—and he joins her.

Jack opens the book to its title page. A stark black ampersand winks back at him. “Unusual title for a book,” he hums, looking for the publisher’s mark. Always investigating.

A hiss escapes the walls of his teeth when he spots the author’s name, one e.e. cummings. The critics called this man a _modernist_ , and either lauded or reviled him for what he’d done to the written word. Jack himself first thought that the arrangement of the poetry on the page was unusual enough to warrant the cocksure American some credit—until he’d gotten to the one about his childhood idol. He realises by the look on Phyrne's face that he must have aired his grievance out loud.

“You _are_ well read,” she huffs in exasperation. The man was impossible at times. “I’m quite sure Mr. Cody would care not one whiff about it, so long as it ensured people remember his name.” The skeptical look he gives her would wither a cactus. Luckily, she’s a desert rose.

“It wouldn’t be art without some controversy, Jack,” she reasons—too diplomatically for his liking. Plucking the book from his grasp, she walks the pages back to her favourite sonnet and hands it back to him. “I’m all for controversy, particularly of the erotic variety.”

A breathless moment passes before her gown drops in a slither, and she is naked and reclining before him. “It’s far more stimulating. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Phry—”

“Read. Jack.” Her tones are imperious in spite of the desperation spinning over her skin.

He clears his throat and begins. " _I like my body when it is with your… body._ " He feels his cheeks burning hot—knows the tips of his ears are scarlet by the ocean-rush of sound that drowns out his own voice. “ _It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more._ "

“That’s it, darling,” she breathes. “Go on.”

And from the soft wheezy sounds she makes, he knows she is touching herself—her pleasure spurred on by the way his voice carries the poet’s words. One look at her would surely incinerate him to ash, so he keeps his eyes trained on the sweat-smudged page.

“ _I like your body. I like what it does, I like its hows. I like to feel the spine of your body and its bones,_ …Ungh…” He’s unable swallow the rust-stutter groan when her foot wiggles into his lap to massage him through his trousers.

“Mmm, Jack. You feel so good.”

“ _And the trembling -firm-smooth ness and which I will again and again and again kiss—_ "

“Please,” she mewls, “Keep reading. So close… Jack… Jack?”

He swallows thickly. “I— I can’t. This is—”

“What?” Her temper swells, fat and tight as the flesh burning beneath her fingers. “Contraband?! It’s only a bloody poem, Jack! Please," she begs. She hates begging. "You can confiscate it later. Just—”

“It’s a love letter.” The distinction makes him blush even more furiously. “It’s… it’s _personal_.”

“Damn it all, Jack! You have no trouble quoting Shakespeare whenever the mood strikes!”

It was a low blow, even by her standards.

“Shakespeare isn’t autobiographical, for one thing. It’s also over three centuries old, for another. So even if it wasn’t purely fiction, quite a bit of anonymity comes with age. This was only published five years ago. This woman… his lover, _Elaine_. She’s still out there. It feels… I don’t know—” He scrubs his face with his hand, frustrated with his mixed emotions, and guilty for the disappointment he sees in her face—shades of his marriage, all too familiar—and tries to explain again. “It feels like a violation, somehow.”

"Cummings wrote it _for_ his lover. He dedicated the volume to her as a Valentine’s Day present. Do you think he would have done that if he cared about it being private?”

“But did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Did his lover care that he gave license to perfect strangers to imagine how she might look and feel in her most intimate moments? Moments that were meant only for the two of them to witness? If I wrote you a letter like this, would you want the world to read it?”

Her expression suddenly shifts, pudding-slackness rendering her jaw soft for a fraction of a second before becoming unreadable—the book all but forgotten. “What did you say?”

Flustered, he repeats himself, louder this time—as if lack of volume was to blame for the ridiculous farce he has created. “I asked if you would you want the world to read something so private.”

“No,” she says gravely, coming closer to kneel astride his lap. Her hands rest heavy on the wide plinth of his shoulders. “You said _if you wrote me a letter like that one_.” She lets her words hang in the air like a prima ballerina's grand jeté. “Would you?”

“I wrote you letters before I sailed to England.”

“Yes, you did. And I will always cherish them.” She traces the flushing pink trail up his throat—rubs his earlobe between her thumb and forefinger. “But they did, forgive me, stop short of making any declarations. And certainly none so prurient as Mister Cummings’.”

“I wasn’t sure—”

“Are you sure now?”

He answers with his eyes, doe-soft and rain-honest.

“I’m not a poet, Phryne.”

“Perhaps not. But now that you’ve gone and said it, I’m afraid I won’t be able to forget. Besides…” Phryne bows her head to press a kiss to his cheek, the corner of his mouth, his admirable chin—hands fisting into his shirt collar. “…You wouldn’t even have to sign it. No one would know.”

“Except you.”

“Except me.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Good.” Sinking to her knees, she unfastens his trousers to take him in hand. The tones she draws forth are far more erotic than the shape of another man’s words… But perhaps not as thrilling as the sounds of his own might be. When he begs, she nibbles along the edge of his cockhead, promising inspiration.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s been two murderers and an attempted robbery since he’d taken Miss Fisher’s request for a love letter to heart..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Fire_Sign for helping me work out the framing. And a heartfelt apology to deedeeinfj whose ficathon contribution I leveraged as personal incentive to get this chapter done.  
> Thank you for reading! XOXO, CG

Chasing his breath, Jack resumes his lookout and buries his nose firmly in The Argus. It’s been two murders and an attempted robbery since he’d taken Miss Fisher’s request for a love letter to heart—nearly three weeks, but he prefers to measure their time together in cases.

She must have known better what it might cost him, because she had not teased even once in all the time that has passed. For this, he’d been grateful.

The vivisection of his feelings was rarely a painless procedure. But this demanded deeper examination—cementing his emotions in paraffin wax to slice razor-thin and peer at under a microscope. Distilling the essence. The grist and the bone. It had been illuminating, though not always pleasant.

At long last, the time had come to put his words into her hands. But how to do it? Handing her his actual heart in a box wouldn’t have made the deliberation any more bearable. The post could be unreliable, and entrusting the task to someone else was utterly out of the question. He does not wish to crowd her, to back her into a corner of false flattery or embarrassment at the contents—a lie he tells himself because he doubts his fortitude in the face of such expectation. She is never cruel.

This was how he had come to wake, criminally early for a day off, to stake out his vantage point—awaiting Mr. Butler’s inevitable departure to the markets so he might deliver it in anonymous fashion.

In hindsight, discretion had not felt anything like the better part of valour. He rang the bell (twice for good measure), and then ran like hell.

But the deed is done and all he can do now is wait. Jack is a patient man by nature but consternation swells in his chest so he feels tight in his own skin. The longer he waits, the more he doubts.

Perhaps a few gaudy words would have sufficed. Perhaps she would have preferred a slew of obscenities rolling off his tongue, so she could laugh in shocked surprise and loop her hands round his neck—her sole intention to bring the letter to life.

He suddenly wonders if he hasn’t gotten this all wrong, and considers creating a diversion. If he hurries, he might still have time to retrieve his offering before she answers…

The door to Wardlow opens wide, and his pulse thunders.

There is something so vulnerable about Phryne’s puzzlement as she looks for her visitor, it’s nearly an intrusion to witness. The condition is as endearing as it is rare. And it tugs sweetly at his heart. From his perch, he can see how she shivers—watches as she pulls her peignoir more tightly to her body.

It takes another step into the morning chill for her to notice the letter and small bouquet of primrose— _she’ll appreciate the irony if nothing else_ —proffered on the Italianate tile before her. With a sly smirk and an asquint glance, she snatches them up and retreats to the warmth of her interiors.

 

*******

 

The sound Phryne makes when the bell rings the second time is pure Collingwood. Dragging one eye open to judge the quality of the light filtering around her curtains, she realises it’s mid-morning and Mister B must be out on his errands—for had he been there, he would have surely answered it the first time.

She pulls on her nearest dressing gown and shuffles down the stairs, her feet finding each step my memory rather than relying on sight. The apricot pongee billows behind her—its crimson lotuses fluttering in the wake.

Wrenching open the door without any preamble, she blinks into the daylight—momentarily befuddled when there’s no one there to absorb her ire over being woken so unceremoniously. Phryne shudders as the damp air seeps through the silk, and wraps the insubstantial cloth firmly around her. Her gaze tracks left and right in search of her unexpected guest but there is no one there.

It is curiosity more than any instinct which propels her further out of doors. A mystery to be solved… a foundling in need… or…

…a gift to be treasured.

Her eyes alight on the buff coloured stationery— _he would insist it is_ _ivory_ —with her name rendered in a familiar slanted scrawl, and her heart stutters. It is the love letter, and a posy of primrose from his garden. _The devil!_ The envelope is curved from where the jut of his chest had pressed against his breast pocket, and it still carries the faintest scent of wool and shaving lotion. A coy smile dimples the corners of her mouth. She surveys her garden one last time before disappearing to the sanctity of her boudoir—certain he is still near.

 

*******

 

Jack’s hands fidget. His newspaper is mangled—as if inflicting such torture on the page could alleviate his disquiet. He knows he should go because it makes little sense to stay. She will telephone him in her own due course, perhaps invite him to an early supper. Better still, she might appear on his doorstep—a hamper on her arm, full of food that will go uneaten until she has sated other appetites. At worst, she could kindly applaud his attempt and promptly move past it.

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, he bins the paper and brushes down his suit. He crosses St. Kilda Road, an eye toward the nearest tram stop, when he catches his name on the breeze.

He turns and she is there—just beyond the oxblood pickets, where the anarchists had once tried to mow her down. Her toenails are painted scarlet.

The flimsy morning gown whips around her, providing her fragile skin no protection from the cold salt air. She appears to pay it no mind, though she must be freezing. Strangers on the street shout and stare, but she acknowledges nary a one. She only stands there, gazing upon him with darksome eyes, his letter clutched tightly in her fist.

He surges forward to catch her up in his arms, and his trenchcoat settles round her—his layers a useful shield, as always. When he spies the tearstains on her face, he realises how exposed she truly is.

She allows him to carry her as far as her portico. "Glass," he insisted in a rough voice, and they let the ridiculous lie pass.

She bolts the door behind him and leads him to her room, where the primroses have come loose of their bundle and are strewn messily over the bedclothes.

Phryne answers his questioning look with a smile before kissing him fiercely, shedding her gown with a shrug to push herself properly naked into the delicious bite of his suit. She comes twice before he even thinks of removing his own clothes.

Spotting the love letter still in her grasp, he moves to take it and she flinches.

“I’m sorry," she whispers, unusually contrite. "I’m just not sure I can let that out of my sight just yet.”

Jack blushes the most fetching shade of cerise as she lovingly props his letter on her side table. The effect of his words tickles over her lips to trickle down her thighs, redoubling as she imagines him reading aloud in his whisky-rough voice. 

She loves him, too, and pushes him down among the primrose to prove it by taking him apart piece by piece.

 

*******

 

_Man plans, and God laughs. The best intentions are laid waste. Sweet words of promise sealed with a press of dewy lips shatter like the brittle things they are. Shards of glass. Of this, I have known. Of this, I have been culpable. Love is not the sweeping romance of an Edwardian novel. It is the small spaces. Tendons and sinew. Connective tissue. It is the gritty, greedy lust of the worst penny dreadful made known in every pore of one’s skin. Of this, I now know I am capable._

_I am not proud of it. But it is mine, and you are the object. The cause. And the effect. I should be ashamed, and yet I am not. I cannot bother to be. Not when the sweep of your throat presents itself to my mind’s eye—unbidden—and I know that if I do not take control, I will be lost to the images with which you have burdened me. How terribly unfair of you._

_Do you have this in mind when you leave in a froth of silk and feathers? You must. I find traces of you in unexpected places. A photograph in my desk drawer. A stocking in my bureau. A pearl button wedged between my floorboards. Your scent lingers on my pillow._

_On the nights we are apart, I lay my head back and picture you above me. Your cunt glistening ripe as I suck the pulp from it. The thunderclap of my name on your lips. And I can almost succeed in pretending that my hand is yours until the moment of reckoning is upon me. It is then when the truth bares itself, whole and hard and utterly obscene. I am reduced to the marrow._

_These are the traitorous depths to which my body betrays me. My constant companion all of these years is no longer my own. Sturdy legs that can cycle and swim and chase fugitives wobble like a foal’s when your hip is pressed to mine. Steady hands that can fire a revolver and complete paperwork in triplicate and memorise Chopin’s Nocturnes tremble at the parting of your flesh. My heart quickens to the sound of your clicking heels. My mouth waters at the whiff of your French perfume. It is an epidemic. Beyond the reach of any doctor or priest or medicine man. You are the root. And the remedy._

_And in the somnolescent fog of my surfeit, my love for you burns and cures. Coalescing in the space between breaths._

_There is just you, and I._


End file.
